It might be a generality, but it is generally true: Not everyone who reads books changes culture, but everyone who changes culture reads books.

One might think the Billboard charts that deal specifically with music would be a place you could escape the influence of the written word. Yet here you have Lecrae taking the top spot, due in large part from a change he made after being impacted by books.

Essentially in my lifetime, the percentage of Americans who do not read books has almost tripled. That’s not a good sign for our country or culture. But even if it is a trend in culture, it should never be so among Christians.

Consider this tremendous biblical basis for the study of literature Karen Swallow Prior gives to her students at Liberty University. Every point is worthy of attention, but two are especially appropriate to this discussion.

Christianity is a religion of the written word. Christianity gives a primary place to the word over the image: God’s highest form of communication with us is through the written word (from the Ten Commandments to Holy Scripture to Jesus as the Word); God cautions us about the power of visual images or “graven images” (see Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death), and the Protestant Reformation reinforced the primacy of words over images); Christianity is responsible for preserving and disseminating the written word and literacy throughout the world as the invention of the printing press was motivated by the desire of Christians to get the Bible into the hands of the people. The word both spoken and written is central to our faith in countless ways.

Literary Christians are better equipped to engage a postmodern culture. Postmodernism is characterized by an emphasis on language and “story”; for many today the aesthetic experience has replaced the religious experience. Christians who understand this can more effectively engage the current culture.

If we truly believe “in the beginning was the Word” and we want that Word to permeate culture at large, we must not only be in the Word, we must be in words, in books and stories.

Christians must be readers and writers. Even in a world supposedly driven by pictures and sounds, books continue to be one of the most important ways we shape culture. Just ask Lecrae.